Kindle EBR update 5.7.2 menu map

Kindle EBR update 5.7.2 menu map

Despite a near disastrous update to our sixth generation Kindle Paperwhite, I was able to get the new software version working. This is a significant update, affecting the current EBRs (E-Book Readers):

While there are different versions of the update (for example, different ones for the eligible versions of the Paperwhite), I think the end result is essentially the same. It makes sense to me that, where possible, Amazon gets that standardized. It can’t be exactly the same…the Paperwhites and Voyage need a screen light adjustment, the unlit “Kindle” least expensive model doesn’t. My guess is that this menu map will be helpful for anybody who can get the update.

In my Menu Maps, I go through the interface to find out where things are (there are sometimes new things, and sometimes things move), and give you some context. I’ve found some very interesting things in the past, and I’m curious as to what I’ll see here…so let’s get started!

Oh, one more thing: I did do a factory reset as part of my update, so my previous choices are likely not affecting this much.

Getting through the “sleep screen” seemed the same to me. I saw a Special Offer, I could have tapped on it, I swiped to unlock, and I could have a passcode required.

Once inside, that’s where the changes are first quite visually apparent.

There are “tiles” or sections of information.

At the top, there is

The device’s name

The wireless strength indicator

The battery level indicator

A clock

Below that is a toolbar:

Home

Back

Brightness

Goodreads

Store

Search (a magnifying glass)

Three dots, which are a menu indicator. Within that menu…

Menu

My Library

My Reading Lists

Kindle Store

Goodreads

Kindle FreeTime

Vocabulary Builder

Experimental Browser

Setting

View Special Offers

Create New Collection

There was also a tile with “MY LIBRARY>”, and it showed me three recent titles.

There was a tile for “MY READING LISTS>”. That showed me three titles from a Wish List, and noted that there were 99+ more.

A third title showed me “BOOKS FROM GOODREADS FRIENDS>”, but I know that rotates.

Believe that was an ad (I have one of the more popular ad-supported versions).

Now, working through, starting with the toolbar:

The Home button just takes me home…it doesn’t, but the way, rotate the one which was currently “YOUR GOOD READS FRIENDS”

The left-facing back arrow doesn’t do anything until you’ve gone somewhere

The brightness setting (it looks like a sun…or, unfortunately, a bit like the settings gear we see in many programs) let me choose up to 24 levels of brightness. Basic rule of thumb: the brighter it is where you are reading, the brighter you want your Kindle. Your Kindle is fighting with the sun…in bright light, having your Kindle brighter will make it easier to read. In a dark room, you need less light on your Kindle to read. Tapping that also opened a choice to turn on or off Airplane Mode, to “Sync My Kindle”, and “All Settings”…which unfortunately, did use a very similar, if not identical, “sun” or “gear” symbol. I’ll come back to All Settings later when I cover Settings

Store started out by updating my Kindle store experience. I then saw “Recommended for You”, and had a choice of Books | Kindle Select 25 | Today’s Deals | Kindle Unlimited | Editors’ Picks | Best of the Months. Scrolling down, I saw Best Sellers | Recommended For You in Kindle Unlimited | For You in Science Fiction & Fantasy | For You in (a few genres probably based on my reading habits) | New for You. Scrolling further, I had More to Explore: Recommendations | Monthly Deals | Kindle First | New & Noteworthy | We Suggest | Kindle Singles | Magazines | Newspapers. Hitting the menu while in the store gave me an interesting different set of choices (the menu is “context sensitive”…it changes based on where you are). They were: Storefront; Books; Kindle Unlimited; Newspapers; Kindle Singles; Magazines; Kindle Owners’ Lending Library; View Wish List; Store Settings; Gift Card Balance. Under Store Settings, I could change my 1-Click Payment Method and Country Settings

When I went to Search, I put in “Alice”, and it defaulted to “Search Everywhere”. That found me books in my Cloud (and it would have been on the device) with Alice in the title or in the author’s name, and suggested that it could search for “alice in wonderland” in the store. When I tapped the “Search Everywhere” at the bottom, I got much more nicely arranged search results. It broke it out into My Items (6), Kindle Store (9,221), Goodreads (22,878), Text in Books (0) (there may be a setting to change for that), and Dictionary and Wikipedia

Tapping the menu from the homescreen…

My Library

This one showed me ALL | DOWNLOADED (so I could choose), ALL ITEMS (3,229) with a dropdown (I’ll cover that display option shortly), and a sort choice which defaulted to RECENT.

Below that, by default, I saw the covers of recent books….and I was on page 1 of 539.

Tapping where it says ALL ITEMS, I get the choices of

Grid View or List View | All Items, Books, Periodicals, Docs, Active Content, Collections. Huh…tapping on Active Content actually did show me choices. The Paperwhites haven’t worked with the Active Content. However, tapping on one just gave me an error message showing me that “This item is not compatible with this device”. In the past, I think incompatible items haven’t shown on the device. Does this suggest greater control of Cloud content from the devices?

Tapping on Collections (my normal view) showed me my Cloud collections when I was on ALL, and correctly told me I didn’t have any Collections on this device when tapped on DOWNLOADED. Tapping a Cloud Collection’s menu symbol, I as able to Add/Remove Items, Rename, and Delete…without having to download the Collection to this device. That actually concerns me…I’d rather that be only done by people who get to the account settings (they need the username/e-mail and password). Tapping one of the Collections, I could toggle between what was in the Cloud and what was downloaded…that’s something people wanted to be clear, and is quite helpful. As I would anticipate, if I download the Collection, that does not download the books in the Collection

My Reading Lists

Tapping the “>” for My Reading Lists showed me

SAMPLES (not just on this device)

GOODREADS WANT TO READ

AMAZON WISH LIST

and “Find books you want to read with Goodreads”

I’m going to jump down in the Menu to

Settings

Airplane Mode on or off (that will disable or enable wireless connectivity…having it off saves you battery charge)

Wi-Fi Networks: tapping it will give you choices of available networks. Tapping Other will let you get to Advanced, where you can manually enter parameters

Registration and Household: adjust Household and Family Library, or Deregister Device (this would be a register choice if the device wasn’t already registered)

Personalize Your Kindle: Device Name and Personal Info (I put my e-mail address there, in case the device is lost); Device Time; Advanced Options (Home Screen View…this is where you can turn off recommendations; Next in Series; Whispersync for Books; Special Offers…two choices here. One is o turn on or off Special Offer Filtering, which will allow you to hide offers which “may not be suitable for all audiences”, and the other one is to choose whether or not Special Offer Recommendations include personalized offers based on items browsed or purchased); Send-to-Kindle Email)

Tapping towards the top center of the book brings up a special toolbar. That includes

GO TO (Beginning; Page or Location; Cover; and the Table of Contents. There was a separate tab for Notes…that defaulted to Popular, but I could choose “Yours” or “Public” as well)

X-RAY (NOTABLE CLIPS, PEOPLE, TERMS, IMAGES)

Aa (Display Settings…FONT, PAGE, READING PROGRESS. There are nine fonts, which defaulted to Bookerly. An Open Dyslexic was also available. There were eight font sizes. Three page option sections had o do with SPACING, MARGINS, and ORIENTATION (no justification choice). READING PROGRESS gave a choice of Location in book, Page in book (if available), Time left in chapter, Time left in book, and None…you can also change that tapping on the display at the bottom of the screen

Share (Goodreads, Facebook, or Twitter)

Notes and bookmarks

The menu in the book gave me

Shop Kindle Store

Vocabulary Builder

Settings

Notes

About This Book

About the Authors

Sync to Furthest Page Read

Word Wises

At the bottom of the screen had the page flip feature, which lets you flip ahead or back without losing your place. I also liked that it showed me the title of the story in this case (chapter title, I would guess), author, location, time left in chapter, and percentage).

Long-pressing a word in the book (holding my finger on it for about a second) brought up

Wikipedia (I was wirelessly connected) on a card, which I could swipe to move o

Translation

Dictionary

I also had choices for Highlight | Note | Share | Search | Open Dictionary | and Report Content Error

Let’s go back to the recommendation strip at the bottom of the homescreen. I toggled the device on and off, and saw:

More by Isaac Asimov (one of the authors on the book showing as the last book read)

BOOKS FROM YOUR GOODREADS FRIENDS

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

My overall impression?

It looks nicer. Access to some choices is easier. There is a lot of emphasis on discovery of books to read…people may see that as ads for things for you to buy, and much of it is…but I appreciate having Kindle Unlimited recommendations, which cost me nothing more.

What do you think? Do you have other questions? Have you found other things? Feel free to share with me and my readers by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

13 Responses to “Kindle EBR update 5.7.2 menu map”

While I have current Android and iOS tablets there is still a functioning (and favorite) Kindle Keyboard 3rd Generation (2010) in my collection. The update for that is 3.4.2 or higher. Thankfully it does not have the new home screen well criticized by blog.the-ebook-reader.com recent post.

P.S. I tried the 1st gen Voyage – meh
Tried the current Paperwhite – nice, but had to return due to pixel bleed-thru in the middle of the screen. However, I prefer the EBR have forward/back physical keys on each side. (I tend to hold the EBR in my left hand when reading.)

I love my Kindle Keyboard. If I had nocturnal vision it’d be my favorite. However, it just seems so convenient to not have to have a light over my shoulder in order to read.

I still use my Keyboard every once in a while and it’s a pleasure. In my house however there are no bright lights directly behind chairs so I have to sit in an unusual spot and read by the picture window sunlight. I do love my Keyboard and have always wished they’d develop a paperwhite keyboard model. I have a feeling most who love and use their keyboard would not want one but I would. I just like the overall feel of the keyboard. It just feels right in my hand considering how I naturally hold a kindle.

Of course part of how it feels is my slip cover which I adore immensely. I love the silicone feel of this case. I also bought one for my paperwhite which they have discontinued.

I also like the Kindle Keyboard model…but the Paperwhite is just such a comfortable read, because of the lighting. The Voyage (which I also have) ha a similar feel…for me, it’s not worth the extra money over the Papewhite. I can see where it would be for some people, though.

I prefer the physical keyboard, too. It works better for those of us who have fine motor skill problems or arthritic wrists. Even though I have relatively small fingers, I have trouble hitting the exact right spot o the touch screen keyboard, and I really don’t like using a stylus. The physical keyboard is right there. You don’t have to make any movements to find it. I don’t even have to look at the keyboard. My thumb just finds the right letter. I also prefer the physical control buttons to the touch screen. The touch screen makes you go through several steps to do what you could do with the push of a single button on the Kindle Keyboard, such as go “home” or “back,” or access the menu. I prefer the five way controller that lets you skip to the next chapter or go back to the previous chapter with one motion. Even though the Voyage has a place you can press to move from one page to the next, it’s wonky. Sometimes it goes to the next page then immediately skips back to the page you were on when you pushed to go to the next page. I’m already sad that soon to lose access to the Amazon cloud because I don’t like the most recent version of the K3 software. I’ll be very, very sad when either the 5-way controllers break or the batteries will no longer hold a charge. Perhaps by then, Amazon will go retro and fix all the problems caused by all their updates. Perhaps they’ll be delivered by flying pigs;)

There is another thing about the keyboard that makes me wonder if it’s my imagination or not. I have often complained about the lack of font sizes on the kindle’s. Quite often, especially when my eyes are tired, one size is a little too small but the next size is quit a bit too large. On the keyboard it seems that does not happen. As a matter of fact I can read much easier on a small font on the keyboard than I can on the Voyage or PW even with the screen resolution being less on the KB. My normal reading mode on the kb is the 3rd smallest font but on the PW or VOY it’s the 4th smallest.

There are two things going on with EBR (E-Book Reader) updates right now.

This one, 5.7.2, is a typical update, in that all eligible EBRs that connect to Amazon will get it.

The other one has to do with older EBRs which haven’t connected (either through the owner’s choice, or because, perhaps, they haven’t been used for a long time. Some older versions of the software won’t be able to connect with Amazon after March 22, 2016

my kindle paperwhite v6 screen only displays less than 50% after the automatic update. Amazon support is useless (do they read the sent emails?) I cannot downgrade either 😦
am I the only one having this problem?

Amazon support consistently as very high ratings, and I’ve generally had great experiences with them myself. I don’t think that’s as true when you e-mail them. If you bought it at Amazon.com or at a store in the USA, start here:

I’d recommend that you call them or have them call you…I usually do the latter. My phone rings in seconds and I’m typically talking to someone within a minute.

If you bought it from one of the other Amazon sites, and you don’t mind sharing, let me know which one and I can take a look for their support contact information.

I’m not sure what you mean by “displays less than 50%”: is half of the picture on the screen showing? In that case, your screen may have failed (I would not think that would be related to an update). If you are under warranty, I would expect Amazon to replace it.

Thanks for your comments. The kindle was purchased through Amazon in Europe (Germany). I will call them next week.
The screen is not broken, but it looks as if graphics are addressed incorrectly, the graphics that should appear on the top half of the screen appear on the bottom half. The kindle was working fine yesterday, then this morning it updated by itself and after the update the screen issue came up. I then did the hard reset procedure, and repeated the firmware upgrade following the manual steps given on the amazon site (no luck). The kindle was purchased in 2014, so I guess I have little chance getting support. I was wondering if others experienced similar issues, that is why I posted on your blog.